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Category Archives: Play

The Benevolent Love Bomb

The term “love bomb” has an iffy pedigree, an association with cults and the recruitment of love-starved loners. I went on the offensive and love-bombed him. Sparkly sparkle charm quarks pinging out of my eyes, gosh he was the nicest man I had met all day ping ping, I would be so grateful for any […]

Blind Dates Grow Up

My husband and I are both … hmm … how shall I put this? Let’s go with finely tuned and move on. We’re also products of different cultures. (I’ve often thought of charging admission to some of our entertaining conversations: the optimistic, anything-is-possible American (me) exchanging views with the pessimistic Cold-War-era German from West Berlin.) […]

Real Adventures with Imaginary Maps

Oh, maps … oops. Sorry, I had to stop and wipe the drool off my keyboard. If you want to hypnotize me or calm me down, just shove a map in front of my face. My eyes will glaze, I’ll acquire a foolish grin, and my hand will reach involuntarily toward the map. And if […]

Digital Art Programs by Kevin

In my constant quest for creativity with a wow-factor, I followed a Flickr photo search to the discovery of Kevin, a man of inspiring creativity, humility, and generosity. Among other things, Kevin created a couple of digital art freeware programs – VEXER (left picture) and Agony (right picture). I’ve played around some with VEXER, which […]

Creativity Prompt | 50

What’s your excuse? ~~~ Daily Creativity Prompts deliver a perspective-shifting zap to your creative process. See Grace Kerina’s recently updated (book and video) Creativity Prompts Compendium for tools to spark your genius. Related reading: Creativity Prompt | 34 ~ A Forgiving Tale

We Are All Magicians

I’ll tell you about this book even before I’ve finished it. Carol S. Pearson, author of the best-seller The Hero Within, writes about archetypes and how they can guide and help us. She and Sharon Seivert wrote Magic at Work, referred to on the cover as “A Guide to Releasing Your Highest Creative Power.” Magic […]

Book | Orbiting the Giant Hairball

“Why would anyone want to suppress genius? Well, it is not intentional. It is not a plot. Genius is an innocent casualty in society’s efforts to train children away from natural-born foolishness.” ~ Gordon MacKenzie “Orville Wright did not have a pilot’s license.” ~ Gordon MacKenzie Gordon MacKenzie may have spent the bulk of his […]

Fonts of Joy

Typography, like cartography, lures me with the promise of esoteric depths. What secrets do the seers of these realms know? A recent foray into the world of typography captivated me to the point of near-breathlessness. There are worlds of joy within even a font style. It doesn’t surprise me that Robert Bringhurst, author of The […]

Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title

My goal with this Christmas Day article is simply to make you laugh. I thought I’d tell a few jokes (What’s brown and sticky? … A stick.) and provide a few links to humorous articles. Maybe later. I’m too busy wiping tears of laughter from my eyes after researching Bookseller Magazine‘s Diagram Prize for Oddest […]

Personality Tests

To continue from the last article’s theme of hidden dimensions, how about uncovering more of your own facets? Online personality tests make self-discovery easy. Clarify what you already know about yourself. Thrill to new revelations. But, above all, have fun. You can always ignore any results that don’t make sense for you. No one is […]

Looking Up

A college friend of mine would walk along nature trails or city streets with his head tipped back, discovering. He’d say, “Up is a neglected direction.” He may have looked silly, and tripped now and then, but he discovered things up there, with his altered perspective, that wowed us both, and I became a convert. […]

How to Stop Time

Tell people you’re really busy, then close the door and putter contentedly. Play with a dog. Don’t look at clocks. Lean back on pillows in a boat on a calm lake. Turn off all buzzing, beeping, ringing things. Float down a slow river in an inner tube with pals, passing the snacks back and forth. […]

Out-of-Context Quote Book

“It’s like being trapped in an elevator with my own music.” “He’s been a pawn in my little recovery game.” “Everything’s very in-between the trapezes right now.” “Is dog hair your sole medium?” Pluck them from the conversation that gives them contextual meaning and some phrases can go on to live long, meaningful lives on […]